


Blue Collared Zombie

by igrockspock



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows she's an excellent nurse.  That's not the same as being a good person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Collared Zombie

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[challenge: where_no_woman](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/tag/challenge:+where_no_woman), [character: chapel](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/tag/character:+chapel), [fic: star trek](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/tag/fic:+star+trek), [genre: gen](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/tag/genre:+gen)  
  
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The first time Chapel saw someone die, she ran. She didn't think about what her colleagues or teachers would think; she just sprinted through big double doors at the end of the corridor and stood in the cold night air, gasping and shaking.

The first time she did triage, after a massive fire in a science lab, she did her duty and stepped over the bodies of the unconscious wounded to escort the able-bodied victims away from disaster. Still, as she splinted broken legs, her eyes lingered over the sleeping faces still inside her field of vision. She watched their chests rise and fall, devised imaginary courses of treatment, constructed lives and families for them at home. When the building exploded before she had a chance to retrieve any of them, she didn't cry, but she thought of them and said silent prayers for the ones they left behind.

Two years into the Enterprise's mission, she steps over bodies in the middle of battles, not even wondering if they are dead or merely sleeping. Her eyes flick expertly through flames and fields of debris for signs of movement, signs of people whose lives can quickly and easily be saved. When someone dies under her hands on a biobed, she barely thinks of it as more than a body, just moves on to the next broken rib or punctured lung or ruptured spleen. At the end of the day, she can rattle off the list of injuries she treated (or tried to) but not the names or faces of anyone she'd saved (or failed to). She is not a woman; she is a machine, logical and efficient, unclouded by emotion. She knows it makes her a good medic, maybe even an excellent one. She's just not sure it makes her a good person.


End file.
